Votes in Tuesday’s primaries had barely been counted when the state House Democrats sent a mass email Wednesday morning to Capitol lobbyists and potential individual donors, soliciting their attendance or donations in connection with eight fundraising events for their “leadership PACs” from Aug. 27 to Sept. 27.

Under the subject heading “Come Together,” the email said: “Thank goodness the Democratic primary is behind us. There is so much work to get done in the next 12 weeks, and without a united team, we simply won't accomplish it.” To overcome “corporate and out-of-state spending” as well as “Super PACs,” the email listed the fundraisers in locations from West Hartford to West Haven to Mansfield to Stamford.

And here’s the interesting part: Each of the eight events solicits money for the three political action committees (PACs) of the Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives — the House Democrats Campaign Committee, the Connecticut Majority Team PAC, and House Majority Committee — putting a triple-whammy on invitees by asking them to give three times.

House Democratic caucus PACs raised a total of about $500,000 for the 2016 election, and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, expects a similar amount this year — so we’re not talking about peanuts here.

Each of the four partisan caucuses of the General Assembly — House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats — pursues its own program of fundraising for its so-called “Leadership PACs” that are supervised by top leaders in each caucus. The House Republicans, for example, also have several including the House Republican Campaign Committee ands the New Friends PAC.

This column focuses on the House Democrats because they were first out of the gate, in a big way, after Tuesday’s primaries. Those primary results set the final field for the November election that will determine not only who wins the governorship and other top statewide offices, but also who controls the 151-member House and 36-member Senate. (Democrats hold an 80-71 House edge; in the Senate it’s 18-18.)

Wednesday’s Democratic invitation email told prospective donors: “It's not a party without you. Get involved by joining other fired-up Democrats at an event near you.”

It gave the names of the three PACs — someone could give to any or all — and it listed the maximum donation “per committee” as $100 for lobbyists and $2,000 for individuals and other PACs. That means a lobbyist could give $300 and an individual $6,000 at one event.

Corporate Money Pipeline

And that doesn’t count the purchase by lobbying firms and their corporate clients of an “advertisement” for up to $250 in a so-called “ad book” filled with messages of “congratulations” or “best wishes” to the House Democratic Caucus campaign for the November. Lobbyists are permitted by law to round up the special interests they represent (businesses, organizations with an advocacy agenda, whoever) to pay $250 each for each PAC — in what’s known at the state Capitol as a “cost of doing business” at the General Assembly.

Hardly anybody ever looks at these “ad books,” which are displayed at the fundraising events — except perhaps for lobbyists who may be checking where a client’s “ad” was displayed and whether it was bigger than a competitor’s.

The books have no significant advertising value and, in truth, merely serve as another means of pumping special-interest money into the Connecticut election system.

Ad books have long been criticized by clean-election advocates, and, until 2013, legislative caucus PACs weren’t allowed to use them to raise money. But legislators took care of that by passing a controversial 2013 law that eased clean-election restrictions.

Here is where you may say, “Hey, wait a minute — I thought we had clean election laws and a multimillion-dollar public financing program that gives taxpayer-funded grants to candidates to run their campaigns, thereby keeping special-interest money out of Connecticut campaigns.”

Well, you could say that exact thing 100 times, although “thereby” sounds lame in everyday conversation, and it still wouldn’t make it true.

The truth is that pouring into the legislative PACS of Democrats and Republicans are tens of thousands of dollars from special-interest sources such as lobbyists’ clients and PACs representing a wide range of organizations that have a financial stake in what laws the legislature passes or doesn’t pass. For years these have included the PACs of labor unions such as the American Federation of Teachers, professional associations such as optometrists and dentists, and corporations such as Dominion Energy.

In addition, these PACs can accept large contributions of up to $2,000 a year from individuals. Individuals can’t give more than $100 to most legislators, because most legislators participate in Connecticut’s Citizens’ Election Program (CEP). Under the CEP, a candidate limits himself or herself to maximum $100 donations in exchange for receiving a state grant for campaigning — about $26,000 for state House candidates, and about $90,000 for Senate candidates. CEP grants awarded this year are expected to approach a total of $40 million for candidates seeking the full range of state offices from governor down to the legislature.

The idea of the CEP is that giving the candidates public money to run their campaigns will eliminate special-interest contributions as an influence on those who win election; in other words, they won’t “owe” anybody.

Circumventing Clean Election Laws

But the PACs — with their ability to accept money from special interests and in amounts higher than candidates can receive directly — offer a way around the CEP.

A legislative leadership PAC can use this money help a legislative candidate in a number of ways under state law. It can make “organization expenditures” of up to $3,500 for a House candidate or $10,000 for a Senate candidate for advertising, hiring campaign staff, polling, generating lists of likely voters for candidates to contact, or staging campaign events. And it can advertise for unnamed Democratic legislative candidates in general without it counting against the per-candidate allotments.

With three House Democratic Caucus PACs each able to make “organization expenditures,” the potential expenditures turn into $10,500 and $30,000 per House and Senate candidate, respectively.

Five of the eight fundraisers mentioned in Wednesday’s Democratic email will be hosted by Democratic House members, with one to four legislator-hosts at an event — a total of 12, including Reps. Dorinda Borer, Mike D'Agostino, Josh Elliott, Robyn Porter, Gregory Haddad, Jeff Currey, Henry Genga, Jason Rojas, Mike Winkler, Jeff Berger (who isn’t seeking re-election), Larry Butler and Geraldo Reyes.

Leaders of the four legislative caucuses sometimes are the chairpersons of the PACs, as House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, is of the House Republican Campaign Committee and the New Friends PAC. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, is chairman of the House Majority Committee PAC. Although the other two House Democratic caucus PACs have a regular legislator and a caucus staff member as their chairpersons, it’s still the top caucus leaders, Speaker Aresimowicz and Majority Leader Ritter, who call the shots.

Asked Thursday about the criticism that these legislative caucus PACs undermine or circumvent the state’s clean-election laws, Aresimowicz said, “I’d get rid of them all” — if it weren’t for the rise in recent years of independent expenditures by Super PACs that can bring unlimited amounts of out-of-state money into play from corporations and wealthy donors from all over the country.

He said that such outside expenditures have been happening since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” ruling that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents the government from imposing limits on independent expenditures for communications by corporations, labor unions, and other organizations.

Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and find him on Twitter@jonlender.

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Megan Ahern, business analyst for Nutmeg State Financial Credit Union, demonstrates the computerized check-in kiosk for driver’s license renewals to be performed in the credit union’s new Milford branch office, starting Thursday, under a contract with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

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Megan Ahern, business analyst for Nutmeg State Financial Credit Union, demonstrates the computerized check-in kiosk for driver’s license renewals to be performed in the credit union’s new Milford branch office, starting Thursday, under a contract with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

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